Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
I won’t say I never thought these things, but the thoughts were only fleeting and now seem like distant memories, no longer relevant in the current scheme of things. I was working from a place of extreme fear. My fear, my parents fear. Fear of what happened to Connor.
“And you thought running away might help?”
I shake my head. “It felt like buying time. One last hurrah before I gave in.” I wasn’t giving in to death. I was giving in to fear of what life with an ICD would mean.
“Gave in to what?” he asks angrily. “A life where you wouldn’t drop dead without a second’s notice?”
“To terror!” Weakness trembles through my body, but anger chases it much more forcefully. “I bore the burden of my family’s fear for years, can’t you see that? That’s why I lived at home. Why I didn’t visit the gym, drink, or party with my friends. As long as I wasn’t suffering symptoms, I was okay. I wasn’t frightened. Everything was okay. But then at my last cardiology appointment, they repeated the stress test, then laid out the news. I was at risk now. It was real—it was happening.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’d put your family through the worry of a six-month wait.”
“I wasn’t sure I wanted the ICD.” This is so true, but want didn’t come into it. “Aren’t you listening? It was like being placed between the devil and the deep blue sea. I couldn’t think of their fears anymore because I had too many of my own. That’s why I left. I wanted time to myself. Time to live, to experience life like other girls do. But then there was you.”
“Me,” he repeats gravely. “Another person you couldn’t tell.”
“I didn’t want your pity.” My gaze ducks to the hospital bedding. The crisp, white sheet and the blue-green blanket I run my fingertips over.
“Not even when I said I loved you?”
“Especially not then,” I whisper and watch as a fat teardrop soaks into the cotton. “You deserve someone better than me.”
“Someone who isn’t selfish, you mean.”
His words cut like a knife. I begin to understand that there’s no coming back from this for him. Panic begins to swell inside me. I thought I could explain—I thought I could make him understand. To live or not to live doesn’t seem too difficult now that I’ve had that choice taken away from me. And him along with it because he deserves better than me. Someone who can give him children. Someone far braver than me.
“I was trying not to be selfish.” The words are choked and halting, but I don’t want his sympathy.
It’s just my heart, that troublesome, hurtful muscle, well now it feels like it’s breaking. Typical. I lived for months worried what it might do, and now that it’s breaking in two, it won’t even have the decency of skipping a one solitary beat. I hiccup a sob as a black thought hits: it’s just as well. Better to worry what being shocked back to life feels like than actually experiencing it.
That’s why I lied. Why I said I wasn’t in love with you. Because I am. I really do love you. I love you so much, I still need to let you go.
One hiccuping sob becomes two. I begin to sob quietly. It comforts me that his instinct is to come to me, to hold me. I see it in his aborted movement and how he balls his hands into fists as though to stop himself. I force myself to be strong, to choke back the tears and not fall apart. I can’t quite manage it but try, swiping the meat of my palms under my eyes.
“People who love don’t treat someone like you have treated me.” He looks up, his golden eyes dim. “You were unresponsive, Mimi. Dead in my arms. I will never not see that image or feel that pain. And I will never understand how you could put another human in that position, let alone someone you profess to love.”
“I’m sorry. So, so sorry.” I run the wet back of my hand under my running nose. I must look such a mess. Dirty, straggled hair and a red, blotched face.
“I thought I knew you, but you only let me see what you wanted me to. You’re not all sunshine. That was an act. You have depths you refused to show me, and the thing is, I would’ve still loved you if you had. But you couldn’t see that because you’re no more mature than Lavender or Primrose.” The knife, it twists. “I have enough on my hands looking after them. I have no desire to add another to the burden.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. Maybe if I say it enough, he’ll believe me. Maybe he’ll understand and see through my tears and my hurtful words. See how he’s become my whole world.